


the cleverness and the joy of seeing you again

by younglegends



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-30
Updated: 2018-06-30
Packaged: 2019-05-31 00:53:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15108347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/younglegends/pseuds/younglegends
Summary: It’s going to rain, Juno thinks.





	the cleverness and the joy of seeing you again

Anything drawn out long enough will eventually run itself into the ground. Life on Mars is no exception. The days flattening into a single line, dragged ever forward by the relentless turn of the world. Juno watches them go by with a detached sort of interest as though from the wrong side of the glass. Everything washing off like water.

Some points stick out, though, like familiar echoes of an old song. A spill of blood to revenge a brother’s life. A lover’s tears at the discovery of infidelity. A widow’s faith in a miracle for her missing lover. Nothing Juno hasn’t seen before, and won’t see again. Well-worn tracks of the story, by now. But he still feels like he’s missing something. The clues, Detective. Always look for the clues.

A splash of gin over his wrist; he’s misjudged the angle of the bottle. He absently sucks the liquor from his fingers. Rita’s calling from outside his office door again, _hey Boss, I accidentally put in an order for a thousand envelopes instead of a hundred, so do you happen to know anyone in the market for a few hundred paper dragons with wings that stick together if you lick them, they’re really quite cute if you give them faces, also I kind of didn’t have anywhere to put them so maybe don’t open your door for a few hours..._

Outside, the city carving lines of light through his window. The dizzying downward tilt of one night into the next, and the next. And then one day the weeds. One day the great desert cracked and emptied of everything save for maybe the flashing billboards filled with the false promises that will survive them all. But for now—blood, and tears, and faith. Echoes of an old song still running through the air, a tune he can’t quite shake off.

Juno nurses his glass. Closes his eye. An old ache like a rotted tooth; dreams like static running interference in his head. The clues, Detective. Come on, catch up. What are you missing?

The clouds are beginning to gather in the sky. Slowly darkening over their heads.

It’s going to rain, Juno thinks.

 

 

In his time, Peter thinks perhaps he has overestimated the weight of a word. _Never,_ he swore as a child, remaking himself shiny and new; _never will I be so mistaken again; never will I live for someone else’s story again; never will I ever let anything touch me again. Never never never._ But life has a funny way of outlasting all one’s vows, until it turns the last of your conviction into ruins. Like this one. Red sand under his boots; a corner of the universe he thought he’d never set foot in again. _Never never never._

Never mind—life marches on, and Peter one step ahead of it always, neck held high above the line of rising water. He’ll be gone by midnight, before the overflow of the clouds gathering over his head, before the Hyperion rain can reach him. For now, though, there is another mark to pin down, another well-laid plan waiting to hatch. One more trick to sharpen his teeth on before he can wink out like a shooting star into the night. Let the past snap at his heels; he’s grown far too quick to be caught now, well-accustomed to the demands of living at a breakneck speed, though there might have been a moment where he had wished to stop and catch his breath, just once—

Peter tastes blood in his mouth. He’s bitten his tongue. He swallows; feels himself resurface into a smile, cutting swift and sharp enough across his face to hurt.

One more trick. One more disappearing act. Until the next, of course, glinting like the distant promise of stars. And the next after that. Rungs on the ladder of a timeless story, taking him higher and higher, until eventually he becomes one of the stars, too. A constellation that will string him into light, immortalize him into myth. Only then will he rest.

Peter squares his shoulders, lets one of his names settle over him smooth as a second skin. There’s an odd tune in his head, old and no doubt stolen from someplace else. He slides his hands into his pockets, setting off into the city, and starts to whistle along.

 

 

The problem with the story is that you get to know its turns too well. A forced reminder of this fact takes the shape of a cornered criminal on the street, staring Juno down. “It’s over,” Juno’s saying, “give it up,” but he recognizes the look in their eyes, that wild darting glance in search of any easy way out. He slips his hand into his pocket, rifling through the debris—damn it, when had Rita put this paper dragon in here? When he finally closes his hand around his gun, he’s a step behind, again. The thief he’s spent the better part of a week tracking down has turned tail to run, shoving bodies out of their way, threatening to disappear into the crowd.

And this Juno knows, too. The clatter and the bang of a chase. His body remembers losing its breath like the familiarity of an old friend. Run down another road, after another briefly shining thing; run yourself into the ground. He’s still good for it. Good for this, if nothing else. Once upon a time he could have lifted his gun, lined up its sight with his eye, seen the path clear itself before him in the air. Now—now he’s just got to run a little quicker, that’s all. Catch up; come on, Detective. Come on.

He wastes a half-second to curse, and then he’s off, footsteps pounding down the street, the wind a shock of cold against his face. Snatches of the city around him—streetlamps and traffic lights and the rush hour of the evening, horns honking and shouts following him: _hey asshole, watch where you’re going!_ The pressure in the air is on the verge of breaking apart, the clouds ready to be struck open. It's only a matter of moments, now.

Juno turns the corner, wheezes “Gotcha” between heaving breaths—but he’s lost them. Slipped through his fingers. Only a sea of strangers on this side of the city, the rise and ebb of a crowd headed for home, for work, for whatever waits for them next, and Juno one of them—

A flash in the crowd; blink and you’ll miss it. Juno does not blink. Stares at the face across the way, wearing a curious expression Juno has never seen on it before: one that does not know it is being watched. It busies itself with looking down at a wristwatch. Elegant fingers come up to straighten out the collar of their jacket. Lips pursed, mouth rounded, whistling a tune inaudible from this distance, through the traffic—but Juno suddenly believes he knows exactly how it goes. Can hear its echo in his head. 

In this city one could get used to living a long, flat line. Stretching out like a dry spell that never ends. Giving up on the delight of ever being surprised again. But then, sometimes—the sound of a song. Notes gleaming like the old light of faraway stars, foretelling blood, and tears, and faith. The clues, pointing forward like a compass. A rumble of thunder overhead; the heavy groan of the clouds, holding on for so long.

Sometimes: a storm.

 

 

Peter steps out of the pub with a tune on his lips, having ordered three drinks and skilfully drunk none of them and overheard an illuminating conversation that gave him everything he needs to know for tonight. Not terribly shabby for an evening’s work. He glances down at the time, straightens his collar, and turns his head to see Juno across the street, staring back at him.

Ah, Peter thinks. So the trick was on himself all along.

Very faintly, a name is being mouthed on Juno’s lips. The sound is lost in the street, but Peter knows who it belongs to. He could reach out and trace the shape of it with his fingers, if he wanted.

He holds himself still instead. Watches with eyes glittering for whatever will happen next. He even holds his breath—though he’ll deny it later, when asked.

Juno does not move, either. Only stands and stares as though from the wrong side of a glass.

Peter can feel himself straighten up, smoothing out. Flicking through all his different faces. Not Rose, the mood is entirely wrong; not Glass—he wouldn’t be able to bear it, not like this. Perhaps Shah—all the indifference of a master thief and nothing more, nothing but the fine point of an exclamation mark upon his exit—

There is the strangest look upon Juno’s face. Shock is to be expected, of course. Wariness, guilt, perhaps even distaste. Or worse—indifference.

This one reads differently. Reads almost like wonder.

Peter lets himself watch it for a moment too long, and then Juno is moving. Across the street, through the crowd. Towards him.

Recognition is a death sentence for a man who does not exist, and yet Peter finds himself caught in its thrill. Suspended in the moments until Juno is before him, again. Somewhere overhead, the stars laughing at him in the secret language of their light.

_And you swore nothing would ever touch you again—_

The crowd is parting around them. They could be anyone; strangers or lovers, it hardly matters. Just another part of the city to be swallowed up. Another pair of bodies under invented starlight.

“Nureyev?” Juno says. “It’s really you, isn't it?”

There is so much still to work out, to work through. Hurt dredging up in Peter’s chest like floodwater from the gates. Unturned and left to rot. But there he is, again. There he is.

There you are.

And then they’re soaked through to the skin. Drops caught in Juno’s eyelashes, dripping from his hair, falling upon the slightly astonished look on his face. Rivulets streaming down the back of Peter’s neck, under his collar, all his hiding places. Curling wet behind his ear. His throat is dry, his mouth slick. He runs his tongue over his lips, and watches Juno follow the movement with the gleam of his eye. As he had followed, found him again.

The sweetness of surrender. The old legends releasing him from their weight, returning him to flesh and blood. To a name. 

“It’s started to rain,” Peter says, and reaches out to catch it in his hand.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i don't think i have ever been so deeply drawn into the _feeling_ of a story as i have been for this podcast. the loneliness and the longing. this story was borne from that feeling. it won't be the last. 
> 
> about the title: i literally thought that line upon waking from a dream once. it has often resurfaced in my mind since, including—especially—when i was writing this. i'm glad i was able to find a story to fit it. anyway, there's something intensely hopeful about imagining a time and a place that hasn't arrived yet, isn't there?


End file.
